Monday, 26 May 2014

7TH EDITION: TAGHMATA TALK™

Time for some TAGHMATA TALK™. Specifically as to how the 7th Edition rules will apply to the mighty forces of Mechanicum.

Now I haven't actually played a single game of 7th yet, so I'm giving my predictions here. In a week or so after I've played some games I'll do another post detailing anything I think has had a major impact on the game. I've gone through the rulebook and haven't really found a single smoking gun in terms of THIS GAME IS NOW UNPLAYABLE /RAGEQUIT, but there are a few subtle changes and improvements. I'll also intersperse this with some super poor quality photos from our 2000pt game on the weekend.

'Yeah I'm not sure when I'll be home darling, the Imperial Fists are fighting some battle robots right outside my building.. They've probably closed the Mag-Lev station.'

Psychic Phase. For some reason GW decided to implement a psychic phase which is reminiscent of the 2-editions old magic phase from Warhammer Fantasy. Instead of going for the current version of the magic phase, or even better: going back to the card system from 2nd Edition. They went with a super-abuseable system which will either work really well when you're spamming loads of powers, or, hardly work at all if you just take a single psyker. This of course matters not to the Mechanicum, as we have no psykers (yet). In terms of the greater 30K meta however, I'm sure Word Bearers are rubbing their grimy hands together in glee.Vehicles. The vehicle chart has changed! No more EXPLODES! results on a 4+ with AP1 weaponry. I must admit I felt pretty guilty on the weekend when I killed Michael's brand spanking newly painted Spartan Assault Tank with a single melta bomb. The change to this table brings vehicles more in line with buildings I guess, except they can still be glanced to death, and when they explode they still only do a STR4 hit to everyone inside. Damnit! I was hoping they'd change it to something more substantial, as Astartes always seem to just jump out of vehicles unscathed. I guess if you changed it to 2D6 Str6 hits you'd be condemning every other race to fiery Kursk-style vehicle graves. The other change is Ramming. You now don't get the bonus for every 3" moved, and your ram strength is whatever facing's armour value, halved, and +1 for being a tank, and +1 for being heavy or super heavy. This is pretty great as it means you can just crush over a Rhino with a 1 inch start, and keep going as long as you demolish it, much like at a monster truck rally.Slight buff to Mechanicum Land Raiders, and a major buff to the imminent Triaros Armoured Conveyor, which with it's effective front AV15 during rams (halved rounded up to 8+1(tank) for STR9 is the highest for a non heavy in the game!! RAMMING SPEED! (Note: speed is no longer a factor in rams.)Probably overall heavy expensive vehicles are going to be even better. Consider what it will now take to kill a Land Raider with a single shot from a lascannon. 3+ to hit, 6+ to penetrate, then 6+ to destroy it.

Dorn's Thin Yellow Line..

Changes to Victory Conditions. So all units in a battle forged list are scoring now. Wow! Well at the moment there's basically only Thallax and Castellax and Adsecularis Tech-Thralls, who are all scoring anyway. However, Myrmidons might be the wild card here. A handful of Myrmidon Destructors with Irradiation Engines will be excellent objective-clearers, and can now simply walk onto an objective as the enemy lie on the ground dying of rad-phage. Vorax Class Battle-Automata should be pretty great too, being able to outflank they can easily overpower most objective sitters (read: most units) and farm them for VPs. Actually all units being able to score brings me to an important point: Won't this just mean people will take minimum Troops from now on and max out on harsh assault troops, knowing that they can simply blow away enemy Troops and seize the objectives anyway? Troops being able to steal an objective only really works if you're sure you can run up to an objective in the last turn of the game and not simply be assaulted and destroyed by whatever is holding the objective in the first place? And even this doesn't really work once an enemy Elite unit has been farming VPs from an objective all game?

I guess I'm just not entirely sure how this new objective farming is going to play out. It would seem from first inspection the game will become more static, with units camped on objectives unwilling to leave them as they might draw the right card that turn.. I guess we'll find out next post!

ROBOT. STREET. FIGHT.

Changes to Force Organisation. Well none of this applies as 30K has its own Force Org charts, and none of them are UNBOUND! Although an ALL GAL VORBAK army does sound pretty fun.Changes to Warlords. Ok so the new Warlord Trait Tables. So I know most people playing 30k roll either on the Astartes table, or if they're playing Mechanicum, the Mechanicum table, however you can also choose to roll on the rulebook tables, and these have changed quite a bit (for the better) there is also a change in that if you're playing a battle forged force you get a re-roll on whichever Warlord Trait Table you're using. Overall I think they've really cleaned up this part of the game and made the Warlord Tables way more viable and exciting. How often have you rolled the 'Counter Attack in your own deployment' power when you're running an all-out assault force? Or '+1 to Reserves rolls' when you have no reserves? No problem, just re-roll! There's generally only one dud power per table, and the re-roll mitigates this. Now, I use a combat Arch Magos and I've been using the Mechanicum table up until now. With the changes to the rulebook tables, I'll be switching over to 'Personal Traits'. Almost every result is pure gold. Furious Charge, Counter Attack are no longer only in your or the enemy's deployment zones. Fearless & It Will Not Die, Feel No Pain are just awesome buffs for any character, and the only one I don't really need, Outflank (as my warlord already has a Jet Pack and so can deep strike) I can re-roll if it comes up! The Tactical Traits have a bunch of results which change how you interact with the Tactical Objectives Deck and I would venture that after a few games, most people will switch over to that table, as it will help when farming VPs and pave the way to victory.Strategic and Command Traits have also been improved, I play a combat HQ at the moment however so I'll leave these ones for someone else to explain. In terms of a Mechanicum force, I think that the Mechanicum table is probably better than Command and Strategic. So in summary I'd rate the tables: 1. Personal (if you have a combat Archmagos) 2. Mechanicum 3. Strategic 4. Command.

SPARTAN INBOUND! Just wait until Michael puts up good pictures of this monster!

Changes to Allies. So I'll only comment on Battle Brothers allies here as I feel they're the only real alliance anyone should be using. You can now embark on BB's transports! Holy Mother of Kazan, this is awesome. I've got some Iron Hands I'm painting up and suddenly the options have multiplied! An Iron Hands Forge-Lord leading a unit of Myrmidons, mounted in a Spartan??? NARRATIVE FORGED! 'To break the Hereteks of the Varpil-Hex Sect at Yrthos, Forgelord Gorgos Soth led bloodsworn Myrmidons of the Brotherhood of Liquidation in an intrusion raid into the enemy primary plasma relay core. Using a durable Flare Shielded Legion Spartan drawn from the Iron Hands armoury they were able to crush through the Heretek lines and use their combined tech-knowledge to shut down the Sects continental auto-defence grid.'You can also apply re-rolls for reserves from one BB's force to another. A small Astarte force cowering behind an Aegis Line with a Comms Unit, calling in help from the Ordo Reductor sounds like a great narrative too!Changes to Characters. Maybe I'm losing my mind or maybe this 981 page E-Book is hard to navigate and search on, but do Independant Characters no longer have 'Precision Shots'? If they don't then that would be a slight nerf to the Myrmidax Arcana for Magos Primes (they do precision shots on a 5+), if someone can find an answer to this let me know!So there we go, not really that many changes to the Taghmata list. No real nerfs to the Mechanicum, and only some minor buffs and streamlining. It's interesting that on the normal 40k forums there is endless doom and glooming, GW has done nothing to reign in Eldar-Bro battle teams, although they have squashed the worst of the Tau-Dar I guess. But who cares man? Aliens? Bah, we've already destroyed all of them in the Great Crusade, Tau and Eldar will be a problem for future generations. Maybe if they had the Mechanicus in the future, these filthy Xenos wouldn't be running rampant...Anyway comment and tell me I'm wrong if you don't agree with any of this!On a personal note, Australia Post (or whoever) lost my package of 9 Myrmidons and a Castellax with Power Blades, so I'm waiting for them to send me another. I've been painting up some fortifications and other models I've got in order to make 2500 for Inferno in June! Is anyone reading this also playing that tournament? Hope you're on the Loyalist side!!++the flesh is weak++

Just found your blog posts and since I'm also starting a Mechanicum army I found your insights really helpful. Just one question about the Sworn Brothers and Transports. In the Crusade Army List book FW put out, it says that "Not even Sworn Brothers can embark in allied transports and rules that affect a particular force owing to its Legiones Astartes special rule do not carry over to an allied force." I know that this isn't stated in Betrayal since it is older than the Crusade Army List book, but does the 7th Ed. rulebook take precedence or does the Crusade Army List book take precedence? I imagine the Crusade Army List book is what to follow. Thanks and look forward to more of your Mechanicum posts!